. Highways and byways of the South. urn back. I wasgetting hungry, and when I presently approached asmall frame house and noted the chimney smokingsuggestively, I clambered over the fence and rapped atthe door. Around a table, inside, were a man andwoman and a dozen children, more or less, eatingdinner. Several of the lesser youngsters hastened topoke their heads out and have a look at me. Theywere so begrimed and ragged, they seemed moreheathen than civilized; but the mother hustled theminto a back room and set a chair out on the porch forme, and when the children reappeared their faces shone
. Highways and byways of the South. urn back. I wasgetting hungry, and when I presently approached asmall frame house and noted the chimney smokingsuggestively, I clambered over the fence and rapped atthe door. Around a table, inside, were a man andwoman and a dozen children, more or less, eatingdinner. Several of the lesser youngsters hastened topoke their heads out and have a look at me. Theywere so begrimed and ragged, they seemed moreheathen than civilized; but the mother hustled theminto a back room and set a chair out on the porch forme, and when the children reappeared their faces shonefresh from a scrubbing. The man of the house kept me company while theham, hot biscuit, and coffee were being were mountains near at hand which we couldsee over the tops of the trees surrounding the littleclearing. That thar, said the farmer, pointing toone of the heights, is Panther Knob on the WildcatMountain ; and do you see that bare, stony place onit ? They call that The Devils Marble Yard. A Virginia Wonder 219. A Load of Logs Not far from where we sat was a row of beehives onthe sunny side of a log shed. Is this a good placefor honey-making, with the woods all around ? Iinquired. Oh, yes, sir, replied my companion, thars al-ways a crop of some kind of flowers hyar until frostcomes; and we have a heavy honey dew hyar the firstpart of the summer like, that on some trees is just thenatural drops of honey. The bees get all they cancarry of that dew till it dries off about eleven oclock. 220 Highways and Byways of the South The children had gathered about to listen, but nowthe smallest one raised the cry of Scorpion ! Hehad found a gray lizard with a blue tail crawling upthe house weather-boards, and he and the others allgrabbed sticks and would have killed it had I nottaken its part. The older members of the family, aswell as the younger, called it a scorpion and consideredit a powerful pizenous varmint. Down the road a short distance, in a brushy field,was a
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